It is well known that hospitality facilities, such as hotels, motels, hospitals, condominiums, operate in a highly competitive environment. In order to attract customers and generate additional revenue, such hospitality facilities often offer a wide variety of services, including an assortment of video entertainment services. In addition to broadcast and cable television, hotels and motels often have video services systems that offer pay-per-view and video-on-demand, as well as a variety of interactive services. Pay-per-view services are scheduled movie services that generally utilize video cassette players installed in a remote location. Typically, the cassette players are loaded with preselected video cassette tapes to be broadcast at preselected, or scheduled, times. Additionally, the programming can be accessed by multiple television sets at any given time while the transmission is in progress. Pay-per-view programming also may be digitized, stored and shown from a computerized video server.
Video-on-demand services enable customers to select a program to be viewed at the customer's convenience. Viewing times are not prescheduled and customers are typically given a choice of a large number of programming alternatives. Generally, unlike scheduled pay-per-view programming, video-on-demand programming selected by the customer is typically accessible only by that customer. The transmission of the programming then is "switched" in a manner so that only the one customer's television set receives the broadcast. Alternatively, some video-on-demand systems do provide "join in progress" capability, such that other customers may view the selected programming. A video-on-demand system may include a robotic device for removing the selected video tape from a storage rack and placing it in an appropriate video cassette player or may include large numbers of individual video cassette players designed in such a manner that the customer's selection of a particular program activates only the video cassette player containing the desired programming. It is also contemplated that future video-on-demand services will be provided from a computer server via transmission facilities of a local telephone company or via satellite transmission. In this case, if the video server were located within the hospitality facility, it would receive the transmissions from the telephone company transmission facilities or the satellite transmission and store them in a digitized form for subsequent viewing by the facility's customers.
Usually pay-per-view and/or video-on-demand systems (collectively, "video services systems") that supply video services are not owned by the hospitality facility, but provided by a third party company. Accordingly, there are a limited number of methods which can be used by customers to pay for the services provided by video services systems. With most state-of-the-art systems, the cost associated with a given video service transaction is added to the customer's room bill. Typically, a systems control computer polls the various room terminals, or waits for status signals from the room terminals, to determine whether a customer occupying the room associated with a particular room terminal has viewed a pay-per-view movie for a predetermined length of time, for example, 5 minutes, or whether the customer has made a video-on-demand selection. If it is determined that the customer has viewed the selected programming for a predetermined length of time or after the transmission of the video-on-demand selection has begun, the systems control computer formats and saves a report of the transaction. Alternatively, the systems control computer may transmit the formatted report, typically via a data I/O port, to a printer to be printed. In either case, at some point, a human attendant will retrieve the report and include the transaction as part of the customer's room bill.
Alternatively, in an advancement of the art, the systems control computer may be connected to a property management system of the hospitality facility via an RS-232 serial interface. The systems control computer formats the transaction report, as described above, and then transmits the report to the property management system to be included in the customer's file, or portfolio, which is stored in a data base of the property management system.
Presently, video services systems may also be used to add charges for goods and services other than video programming to the room bill. For example, the systems control computer may be capable of formatting information contained in the portfolio of a particular customer stored in the property management system and transmitting the formatted information to the television set of the customer's room for display thereon. If desired, the customer may use a remote control keypad associated with the television set to approve payment of the room bill with a preapproved credit card number entered into the customer's portfolio during check-in. The customer's room bill is retrieved by the systems control computer from the property management system portfolio. This information is formatted into preprogrammed graphic screens. The customer responds to the graphic screens with the remote control keypad. For example, "Press #1 if the bill is correct; press #9 if the bill is incorrect. Press #7 if you wish to pay for the bill using the credit card number given to this establishment when you checked in." The remote control keypad generates infrared signals that are then converted to radio frequency (RF) signals and transmitted to the systems control computer.
Prior art video services systems also allow customers to use the remote control keypad to reenter a credit card number in order to compare it with the preapproved card number already stored during check-in at the property management system in the customer's portfolio. In this manner, the system can be utilized to verify that the credit card number is correct and/or to verify that the customer is the rightful owner of the card. The same technology also enables customers to order and bill meals and other goods and services to their room bills.
A recent advancement in the art enables customers to order and pay for a pay-per-view movie, an on-demand movie, or some other amenity by credit or debit card using a telephone with a built-on card swipe or using the telephone keypad to enter billing information. The billing information is transmitted, via standard dual tone multifrequency (DTMF) tones, via a private branch exchange (PBX) of the hospitality establishment or a public switched network, to a centralized processor. The charge for the transaction may appear on the room bill or, with this advancement, may be billed to the card. In this manner, customers may purchase entertainment and amenities with prepaid cards (debit cards). However, this method has several restrictions that make it inappropriate for many settings. For example, it requires the use of a specially configured telephone that includes a card reader and requires the telephone system and video services system of the hospitality facility to be interconnected.
Therefore, despite the capability of prior art video services systems, an advancement of the art is needed. Specifically, prior art systems allow customers at all types of hospitality facilities to pay for services using a preapproved credit card recorded in the property management system customer portfolio. Likewise, they may pay for services at check-out. However, prior art systems do not enable customers to make point-of-sale payment for purchases from their rooms with credit or debit cards that are not preapproved or not stored in the property management system. In addition, even though currently available systems are capable of allowing customers to interact with the video services system and with computer generated graphics screens transmitted to and displayed on a television set in their room, they do not enable customers to utilize the video services system to interact with the necessary data bases to retrieve information, such as account balance, etc., therefrom. In addition, presently available systems do not enable the video services systems to compile information from a variety of data bases in order to select and transmit interactive graphics screens for display on the customers television set. These shortcomings limit the customers options and curtail their ability to purchase goods and services and limit the number and type of services that service providers can make available to customers.
Small facilities typically pose additional problems that are not addressed by the prior art. For example, a high percentage of customers who stay at small motels prepay for their rooms with cash. Because they pay with cash, these customers do not need to check-out, and the establishment's personnel have only the minimal, initial contact with the customers. Furthermore, because they have no credit card on file with the facility, if additional services are purchased, they must be purchased with cash at the front desk or from some type of vending system. Additionally, if a credit card is on file, the customer may prefer to use a different credit card, a prepaid debit card or a bank ATM card. Traditional video services systems are not designed to serve this market.
Hospitals also pose challenges that are not overcome by the prior art. For purposes of clarity for insurance reimbursement and for other reasons, hospitals must segregate billing for pay-per-view entertainment and other video system purchases from the rest of the hospital bill. For this reason, it is not desirable for a video services system installed in a hospital to utilize the hospital's property management system or personnel to collect payment for system services. In addition, video services systems for hospitals must be flexible enough to accept point-of-sale purchases and payment from more than one party because in a hospital, a given television could be utilized by patients, family members, friends and other persons. This could result in when, for example, a patient's family members decide to utilize pay-per-view services while a patient is undergoing or recovering from a surgical procedure. At a later time, the patient may refuse to pay the bill, claiming that he or she did not utilize the service. Likewise, patients in a hospital may spend much more time in their room than a business person at a hotel, but patients are much more likely to be interrupted, especially during the day, for tests or therapy. Accordingly, because of the inflexibility of current systems, providers of video services for the hospital market potentially are exposed to a substantial loss of revenues through denial of personal charges.
It is generally acknowledged that hospitality facilities of all sizes and would benefit from the Convenience and capability of point-of-sale type, transactions and payment. These transactions satisfy customers impulse purchases of amenities and other services. Even more important, the hospitality establishment is no longer responsible for collecting the payments and or the loss of revenues when a customer refuses to pay. These conveniences and capabilities simply are not available with the present art.
Therefore, what is needed is a video services system which enables point of-sale payment for transactions via a video services system.